FR JOZO SCANDAL

Mostar, 7 February 2000
Prot.: 131/2000
Dear Father Franken,
I answer to your letter of 6 February 2000. Thank you for your book Een Reis naar Medjugorje, Van Spijk Venlo - Antwerpen, 1999. I hope to have an English version soon.
Regarding Father Fra Jozo Zovko, OFM, member of the Franciscan province of Herzegovina (several times mentioned in your book, especially p. 102), I am obliged to inform you that he was revoked of "every faculty and canonical mission in the diocese of Mostar-Duvno and Trebinje-Mrkan" by my predecessor Monsignor Pavao Zanic, who died on the last 11 January, in a letter of his Diocesan Chancery Office, Nr. 622/89, of 23 August 1989.
As the present diocesan bishop of these two dioceses of Herzegovina, I uphold this decision, and action. Furthermore, since he has heard confessions without the necessary faculty, he has also fallen into the penalties prescribed in canon 1378 § 2, 1 ยบ. I notified him of this in my letter, Nr. 423/94, of 14 June 1994.
The Congregation for the Evangelizatlon of the Peoples requested in 1990 that he went away from Medjugorje, into a "convento lontano", but he is still very involved in the Medjugorje affair, residing in Siroki Brijeg and visiting Medjugorje. Fr Jozo Zovko is a disobedient Franciscan.
Father Zovko is constructing a Convent of great proportions in Siroki Brijeg in this Diocese without the permission of the ecclesiastical authority. According to the project, of 1997, it costs about 8 millions DEM. From where, I do not know it.
Availing myself of this opportunity, I wish to express to you my regards and greetings,
Monsignor Ratko Peric
Bishop of Mostar-Duvno and
Administrator of Trebinje-Mrkan
Reverend Father Rudo Franken
Markt 7, 6088 BP Roggel
